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October 17, 2015

How Obama’s Mind Control Experiments Impact Every American

Pay attention: President Obama is going to pull a fast one on you using very subtle techniques driven to modify your behavior to do what he says.

This sounds like the ramblings of a paranoid conspiracy theorist, right? Someone who wears tin foil and complains about the radio waves? Except that the administration is boasting about the effects of its experiments with behavior modification.

Don’t know how this went mostly unnoticed when it started, but for a year now, Team O has been experimenting with behavioral economics and psychology, using methods small and large to figure out ways to get you to do something that it deems is good for you and society.

The nickname is “nudging”— the idea that policymakers can change people’s behavior just by presenting choices or information differently. The classic example is requiring people to opt out of being an organ donor, instead of opting in, when they sign up for a driver’s license. Without any change in rules, the small tweak has boosted the number of registered organ donors in many states.

Nudging has gained a lot of high-profile advocates, including behavioral-law guru Cass Sunstein and former budget czar Peter Orszag. Not everyone likes the idea—”the behaviorists are saying that you, consumer, are stupid,” said Bill Shughart, a professor of public choice at Utah State University—but President Obama was intrigued enough that he actually hired Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard who co-wrote the best-known book about the topic, “Nudge.”

The president officially adopted the idea last year when he launched the White House’s Social and Behavioral Science Team (SBST), a cross-agency effort to bring behavioral science research into the policymaking process. Now the team has published its first annual report on this experiment.

How did it go? Mostly, the efforts appear to have worked, though it’s hard to know how much impact they’ll have. In part this is because the SBST’s efforts are small—just 15 proof-of-concept projects in its first year—and limited by agencies and laws in how bold they could be.”

That’s right. The administration is messing with you. Of the 15 projects, 13 showed favorable outcomes, according to the Social and Behavioral Science Team report out of the president’s National Science and Technology Office. It claims that the purpose of such efforts is to make government more efficient and reduce costs to taxpayers.

Well, isn’t that special? For the love of all that’s holy, did it really take a year-long survey to determine that excessive forms asking for tons of personal information deter people from participating in government programs?

And while these early tests may seem innocuous enough, who’s to say what’s next?

Behavioral economics is used frequently in marketing, so perhaps people won’t be so outraged that the government is trying to get you do things it wants you to do. And while it’s a fine line between persuading you to do something you want to do and convincing you to do what the government wants you to do — the end result is government gets bigger, because let’s see, opponents of nationalized health care can’t use the argument that no one wants to sign up for the program when the government uses every psychological tool available to make people sign up.

The executive order signed just last month already admits its agenda-driven goals.

By improving the effectiveness and efficiency of government, behavioral science insights can support a range of national priorities, including helping workers to find better jobs; enabling Americans to lead longer, healthier lives; improving access to educational opportunities and support for success in school; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. (italics and bold mine)

So, nothing could go awry here, eh? It’s all just to make government more efficient. I’ll believe that just as soon as climate change efforts avert a mass calamity.